Cyber-Threats Pose Challenges for NATO Summit in Chicago

Security experts expect WiFi freeloaders, man-in-the-middle attacks and targeted attacks against those working at the Chicago site of the upcoming NATO Summit.

Occupy Wall Street is
expected to protest alongside the anti-globalization movement. Traffic
will induce migraines. Some schools have rescheduled their proms. But an
onslaught of cyber-attacks and WiFi freeloading will likely be the nastiest
cherry on the NATO Summit pie, security experts say.
This, the first-ever North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit to
be held in the United States, outside of Washington D.C., will take place on
May 20 and 21 in Chicago.

Cyber-headaches may include
attackers targeting laptops and smartphones or freeloaders piggybacking on WiFi
signals, security experts told the Chicago
Sun-Times.

Beyond that, the Sun-Times reports that Internet,
wireless voice and even electrical outages might occur, and that all Chicagoans
should prepare by backing up their data.
Political activism and any
type of social unrest manifest themselves first in cyber-space, Tom
Kellermann, vice president of cyber-security for Trend Micro, in Cupertino,
Calif., told the paper. Whether its an
anarchy movement, war opponents, terrorist groups, state-actor groups or
criminal groups, they become much more active around these types of events.
Kellermann, a former member
of the presidents Commission on Cybersecurity, spoke at a cloud computing
conference in Chicago last week.
Here are security experts'
recommendations to stay safe online during the Summit:

Avoid using WiFi
or sharing your location via Foursquare or other check-in services near the
event. Cyber-criminals can use location data for man-in-the-middle attacks
against neighborhood access points, Kellermann noted. These attacks involve
active eavesdropping, in which the attacker makes independent connections with
the victims and relays messages between them, leading victims to believe
they're talking directly to each other over a private connection, when in fact
the entire conversation is controlled by the attacker.

Those in the
summit area should update their antivirus software. The cyber-attacks will be
against users, folks and entities that support the NATO event, Kellermann told
the Sun-Times. There will be targeted
attacks via email and social media against people working security, catering,
hospitalitypotentially any participant in the event.

The FBI is
warning travelers that staying in a hotel won't keep you safe. The Internet
Crime Complaint Center (of which the FBI is a member) on May 8 issued a warning about
attackers installing malware through pop-up windows while a traveler is linking
to a hotel's Internet connection.

The FBI recommends these
safety precautions when staying in hotels for all government, private industry
and academic personnel, particularly when traveling abroad:

Use extra caution
before updating software products on a hotel Internet connection.

Check the author
or digital certificate of any prompted update to see if it corresponds to the
software vendor.

Perform software
updates on laptops immediately before traveling.

Download software
updates directly from the software vendors Website if updates are necessary
while abroad.

Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. Since 1995, she has also been a Webcast news show anchorperson and a reporter covering the IT industry. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection. Prior to becoming a journalist, Vaas experienced an array of eye-opening careers, including driving a cab in Boston, photographing cranky babies in shopping malls, selling cameras, typography and computer training. She stopped a hair short of finishing an M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College. She runs two open-mic reading series in Boston and currently keeps bees in her home in Mashpee, Mass.